In a hotel room in Troy, Illinois with my partner and our four cats, one last leg away from our new place in Des Moines. It’s surprisingly calm in here.
@4. srv – MGM’s finances went in the shitter and then the film’s makers realized pissing off China (and their market for film) was a bad move so post-prod they tried to make everything Chinese into North Korean.
9.
p.a.
Work. 2 man person job, and I’m the only one here. sigh…
10.
Seanly
Tell me you are at least on the Horde.
So how about those 150 mark of the world tree quests? Great way to unlock upgrades…
And it seems like the Cubs relievers are planning on walking every single member of the Marlins in the top of the 9th. Seriously–six batters, five walks and a double. Carlos Marmol can DIAF (metaphorically speaking, of course).
Coping. Selling ebooks. Contemplating the odds of getting hired somewhere.
13.
General Stuck
Been gorging myself with True Lemonade mix that came in mail yesterday, and I love it. First time, I’ve tasted something like real lemonade since I can remember.
I’ve about full up to here with our current politics though. I look for some wingnut to offer a pilot program to bring back real gladiators pretty soon, with all the hungry tigers and shit. And Emperor Pontius Cantor in a toga giving the thumbs down to a tearful Boehner, begging for mercy.
14.
Mike Kay (Team America)
Michelle Bachmann mangles the pronunciation of “Chutzpa”, calling it “chitspah”.
@Anne Laurie: Isn’t it nice when blog owners read their own blog?
16.
Groucho48
Got back into DAOC a couple weeks ago. I liked the PvP in Rift, but it was limited. So, I figured I’d try the RvR in DAOC. I played DAOC a few years back but on the carebear server.
Results are preliminary, but, I believe I’m too old and fumble-fingered to be much of an RvR success. By the time I realize we’re under attack and I target, I’m dead.
I’m also looking forward to the last strawberry pound cake of the week. I’ve gone through 2 pints of strawberries in about 10 days. Think I may have to raise the Belt Notch Limit Ceiling.
I was never able to get into WoW, for some reason.
PaulW at #12 You’re selling ebooks? A couple of days ago I got back scans of 8 books in my backlist. I have to edit them but ugh. So I started making the covers. Boy is picasa a very very limited & limiting way to do this. It is, however, free. So are the guides I downloaded about formatting. Anyway, sounds like you’ve come out on the other side of all that, so kudos.
Other than that, I’m rewatching The Wire. Poor Frank Sobotka.
20.
Villago Delenda Est
There is a HILARIOUS quest line in the Badlands where some NPCs, in a Rashomon type fashion, describe what happened when Deathwing emerged from Deepholm and first ravaged the Bandlands. A chopper plays a prominent part in in the last quest in the line.
@Villago Delenda Est: That sequence of quests is, indeed, awesome. There’s also a hilarious one in Hillsbrad where you need to help an NPC “player” by the name of “Dumass”. I think there’s an Alliance version of it, too.
22.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
A should be bigger story from Steve Benen (is this what they call a buried lede?)
* Still high, but better: “The Labor Department says that weekly applications [for unemployment benefits] dropped 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 405,000, the lowest level in almost three months.” We would have been well below the 400,000 threshold were it not for the government shutdown in Minnesota.
It’s almost as if there’s some correlation between government spending and jobs. Somebody should tell somebody
23.
joel hanes
Reading Dances With Dragons, ending a five-year wait for it to come out.
It starts well.
24.
Urza
audio books of Song of Ice and Fire are better, but your mileage may vary when it comes in 6 nearly 8 hour long chunks
someday I hope they redo them in an epic audio book using the tv actor voices, but I guess thats asking alot
I took my nephew who’s visiting me out to dinner at Chili’s (which is where he wanted to go). When we went in, I showed the hostess my e-cigarette, asked her if she was familiar with them and if it was ok to use it. She said it was fine, so, I was taking an occasional puff off it while waiting for the food to arrive. So, on the other side of the divider where our table is, one table down, there’s this huge fatass mountain of a woman, who’s very rudely staring at me. And clearly talking about me, as she says something to her fatass husband and he turns around and stares too. The waiter comes by to drop off our drinks and says, “oh, you’ve got one of those e-cigarettes.”
Next thing I know, here’s the manager at the table asking me to put it away, saying they’ve had a “complaint”. I say, “oh, that woman right there (pointing) who’s been rudely staring at me for the past 10 minutes? What’s her problem?” He says she’s complained about “the smell.”
Now, I don’t know if you’re familiar with e-cigs, but…there IS no smell, unless you’re 2 feet away or in a very small enclosed space like a car, and even then it’s very faint, and in my case, since the liquid in mine is spearmint, it smells like a stick of gum – when you can smell it, which a fatass bitch sitting 10 feet away in a large room certainly can not. Horribly offensive, right? I ask him, “what does she say it smells like?” He can’t answer. I said, “I’ll be glad to put it away, but just so you know…I DID ask the hostess when we were seated if it was OK and she said it was, this things does not HAVE a smell, and all it’s putting out is water vapor.” But I put it away. He leaves, I look over, and fatass bitch is STILL staring at me. So…very loudly, and without really even thinking about it, I say, “I’m OFFENDED because you’re FAT!” My nephew almost falls out of his seat laughing.
The waiter comes back by and apologizes, says she complained to him first, and he TOLD HER it was nothing but water vapor, and she STILL called the manager over and complained. Then he says, “that table has been a problem since they got here, sorry again.” So when he leaves, I start staring a hole through the fatass bitch; meanwhile I continue to push the button on the e-cig (but not puff on it) so she can see it lighting up. Within about a minute she says to her husband “she’s sitting over there STARING at me,” and I say aloud, and hope she’s reading lips, “goddamn right I’m staring at you, just like you’ve been doing to me since I got here.” She says to her husband, “I’m going to go on out.” And she gets up and leaves and (according to my nephew) stares daggers at the back of my head as she’s leaving.
A few minutes later fat hubby gets up to leave. I see him through the window, waddling out to the car. He gets in and apparently gets some tongue-lashing from her, because he gets back out, comes back inside, goes up to the hostess stand and starts a conversation in which he’s pointing over to our table (again, according to my nephew). I say to my nephew, “what, are they pitching a fit now because I was doing the same thing to her she’d been doing to me the whole time I’ve been here? What, they’re going to ask the manager to kick us out of the restaurant for looking at her now?”
Anyway, we ended up with a comp meal; I was nothing but sweetness and light to the manager and waiter. But I’m still kicking myself wishing I had gotten up, gone up to her table, and said, “look, if you’re so concerned about your health that you’re worried about inhaling a little WATER VAPOR, by all means stay away from hot beverages & etc, but most of all, if that’s your worry, stop digging your grave with your FORK you fatass busybody.” But then, we probably wouldn’t have gotten a free meal. As for the fatass twins, I think they paid full freight for their meal.
You know, I’m a reasonable person. But when someone is such a fucking bitch that they’re going make shit up just to try to fuck up someone else’s day for their pleasure…I’m glad I made her uncomfortable enough to hove her fatass out the door.
My nephew is still laughing about all of this, BTW. I’m a really bad influence.
26.
ProudCynic
Wait–is that one of the hunter spells I see in that screenshot, or has it been re-purposed? Mr. Cole, do you name your pets Tunch, Lily and Rosie? Honestly, I always had you pegged as a shaman, what with you being a godless librul and all.
27.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
Reading blogs, what the hell else do you think I’m doing this evening? And every evening. I gotta get back to life* one of these days.
*The part that doesn’t involve working or repairing stuff in the house, of course.
28.
RobertB
Doing the same thing. Dying repeatedly to the Spider boss.
29.
Thymezone
Hi, what I am doing is advancing this argument to push back against the destructive Move On campaign related to the debt ceiling talks.
Don’t sign this petition. This campaign by Move On, an organization that is supposedly on our side, is based on a pretty blatant piece of misinformation … or if you prefer, a lie … about the handling of the Social Security issue in the current debt ceiling negotiations. Don’t believe the rhetoric, it’s not true .. and it harms our true cause.
Excerpt /–
Guess what the president just did
pol.moveon.org
News reports say Obama put Social Security cuts on the table for a debt deal with Republicans. We have to act quickly to get congressional Democrats to take those cuts off the table–a deal can’t pass without them.
–/ end excerpt
Let me explain: Social Security was never going to be “slashed.” That’s not just hype, that’s a lie. What was floated during the debt ceiling talks was a proposal to change the formula used for COLA (cost of living) increases to benefits in Social Security going forward.
Depending on whose spin you choose to read, this was either a minor shift in benefit calculations, or a big one … and both opinions are technically true. It’s minor in the short years, and could .. could … become major in the out years (20, 30 years down the road) due to compounding. There are two key things you should understand about this proposal:
One, the out years are not terribly well predictable, in terms of benefits parameters, from where we are now, and what we say about them now is not binding on governments in those out years.
Two, and more importantly, this new calculation was described by its proponents as a move to “strengthen Social Security” … AND IT IS.
You see, the “strength” of Social Security is NOT the ability of the system to deliver bigger and bigger benefits as a matter of policy. The strength being referred to here is the integrity of the system itself. Unless benefits calcs are kept true to a consistent and very rational connection between the drivers … such as cost of living … and the benefits, the fiscal health of the system can get out of whack. Keeping it on track is what makes it strong, reliable, and congruent with fiscal responsibility as conditions change … which they constantly do.
If we jury rigged Social Security to always gin up the greatest possible benefit increase from a driver, such as cost of living, at the expense of a really rational and cautious link between driver and benefits, over time the whole system would get out of balance and become vulnerable to attack and fiscally insolvent, or closer to it. It’s long term health MUST be based on sound, solid, consistent math and consistent rules that don’t damage the integrity of the math over time.
What happens when a complex system like this gets out of balance with its internals? You end up with a trainwreck of fixes and patches that will remind you of the income tax code … because instead of keeping it sound, people have just slapped on fixes and gouges and jury rigs year after year after year until the whole thing is a pile of junk. That is exactly what we DO NOT want to happen to Social Security. The proposed “cuts” are adjustments that avoid that damage.
Now to the bigger point: If we start lying to ourselves, and to our base, and to the public at large, about every necessary adjustment to this program and calling anything that reduces a benefit a “slash” as if it were going to tear down the program, when in fact it will strengthen the program, then we are doing the same kind of misinformation disservice that our opponents do every day. When ends start to justify means, and we spin and hype and make things up for political purposes, we lose the integrity of our message, and we lose the high ground.
Investigate and think carefully before being sucked into this “Don’t Slash Social Security” campaign …. it smells.
Thanks for reading a long and slightly technical piece. Let’s not turn into “pledge signers” like the Norquist Drones. We can do better.
30.
Suffern ACE
What am I up to? I’m on vacation for two weeks starting tomorrow. One week stay at home, 2nd week with the folks in Wisconsin where we’ll be making raspberry jam and canning peaches. Last year, my vacation was spent reading post after post about the near ground zero mosque thinking everyone had lost their minds so I didn’t have much fun. This year, I think I will buy a five-gallon bucket, fill it with sand, and bury my head in it. Nothing I can do about the debt ceiling, and I want to enjoy my last trip home that will free from the inspections of local customs officials and forced bribes to petty militia commanders.
31.
Mark B
Playing Legend of the Green Dragon … which is a web-based recreation of Legend of the Red Dragon, which I used to host on a BBS in the dark ages before the Internet was created.
[retry … original post disappeared]
32.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Jennifer: Well, kudos to you, I think. I have become unfailingly polite to everyone as I get older. Particularly while driving, after I realized that many of the people I encounter could be armed.
Brother Shotgun – I believe I was every bit as polite to this person as she was to me.
35.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Jennifer: True enough, from your description. And as to my fear of encountering armed angry people, seems to me you’d’ve had plenty of time to deal with it while she shifted mass to locate her weapon, so no worries there.
@Thymezone: I thought you had left, because we weren’t worth your pearls of wisdom.
39.
CaseyL
I am home, feeling incredibly lazy for no particular reason, and wondering if I can and/or want to get up at 5:00 am to go to Boot Camp exercise class. I hope I decide to do so, because in just one week the class has made a perceptible difference. But… sometimes Morning Me has a very different idea about these things than Evening Me. And Morning Me might decide she really wants to sleep in that extra couple hours.
40.
Yutsano
If anyone needs an uplifting positive tale, I offer this vignette of saving the life of a whale.
41.
joel hanes
I reported :
Urza @24 opined :
audio books of Song of Ice and Fire are better
Hmm.
I prefer my own in-my-head interpretive reading to any audiobook I’ve ever heard, and to most of the deliveries by actors in even great movie versions.
Last week I drove from Texas to Iowa with my mom and sister, listening to the audiobook of Connelly’s Lincoln Lawyer. The reader worked hard to separate the characters, hamming up the voice interpretations, but was unable to scan far enough ahead to lay the spoken emphases correctly, or even plausibly, in sentences (like this one) with more than two or three clauses.
@ 40 Yutsano – damn, I thought that WAS an uplifting tale I told.
43.
Spaghetti Lee
Because I hate myself, apparently, I’m havin’ an online slapfight with a libertarian acquaintance who is trying to tell me that the PPACA, the Dodd-Frank Bill, and the GM Bankruptcy were all instances of nationalization.
44.
Yutsano
@Jennifer: FWIW I LOLed. But right now any uplift is a fucking welcome occurrence.
45.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
i’ll post here and in thread above about some wingnut asshole: going to be in Seattle Tuesday night and then in Portland Wednesay for the Portland/West Brom match. I would greatly welcome suggestions on places to eat drink and party in either city.
Thanks!
46.
burnspbesq
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine:
Red Star Tavern in downtown Portland is a fabulous restaurant. Not much of a party place, but fabulous food and really good service.
47.
Thymezone
@Comrade Kevin: No, I didn’t leave. I just curtailed most but not all of my posting. Been busy here at Zone headquarters. We’re expanding into China.
48.
Thymezone
@Yutsano: The sea was angry that day, my friends?
49.
burnspbesq
@Yutsano:
Is your friend that wanted to pick my brain free for lunch on Monday? That’s pretty much the only slot I have open.
Also, need a recco for a good burgers-and-salads type joint in the vicinity of Pike Place Market. Get in with spouse and kid at 1:00 on Saturday but check-in at the Hyatt Place isn’t until 3:00.
@burnspbesq: E-mail sent. And a good thought for a food rec is the Pike Brewing Company, although I fully anticipate being overruled by MikeJ here. :)
53.
BeccaM
What am I doing? Loathing the stupid Druid line of quests in the Firelands, because the stupid NPC git didn’t spawn for nearly a week… and when he does finally, I end up burned to a crisp even though I’m nowhere near the flames as he walks through ’em.
Can’t wait until tomorrow when I finally open up the Wardens daily hub.
Baud
TPM reporting Minn. gov’t shutdown is over.
Anne Laurie
Having my posts stepped on by the big important blog owner. Bless his heart.
Gardening next thread down, everyone.
ruemara
installing a sink and hoping the power fixes itself. does the secret work on 220v outlets on the fritz?
srv
Screw Harry Potter, what happened to that Red Dawn remake?
kdaug
Minesweeper marathon.
Cat Lady
Things are not the way they used to be.
Brian S
In a hotel room in Troy, Illinois with my partner and our four cats, one last leg away from our new place in Des Moines. It’s surprisingly calm in here.
Dave
@4. srv – MGM’s finances went in the shitter and then the film’s makers realized pissing off China (and their market for film) was a bad move so post-prod they tried to make everything Chinese into North Korean.
p.a.
Work. 2
manperson job, and I’m the only one here. sigh…Seanly
Tell me you are at least on the Horde.
So how about those 150 mark of the world tree quests? Great way to unlock upgrades…
Brian S
And it seems like the Cubs relievers are planning on walking every single member of the Marlins in the top of the 9th. Seriously–six batters, five walks and a double. Carlos Marmol can DIAF (metaphorically speaking, of course).
PaulW
Coping. Selling ebooks. Contemplating the odds of getting hired somewhere.
General Stuck
Been gorging myself with True Lemonade mix that came in mail yesterday, and I love it. First time, I’ve tasted something like real lemonade since I can remember.
I’ve about full up to here with our current politics though. I look for some wingnut to offer a pilot program to bring back real gladiators pretty soon, with all the hungry tigers and shit. And Emperor Pontius Cantor in a toga giving the thumbs down to a tearful Boehner, begging for mercy.
Mike Kay (Team America)
Michelle Bachmann mangles the pronunciation of “Chutzpa”, calling it “chitspah”.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/43762983#43762983
LOLZ
Comrade Kevin
@Anne Laurie: Isn’t it nice when blog owners read their own blog?
Groucho48
Got back into DAOC a couple weeks ago. I liked the PvP in Rift, but it was limited. So, I figured I’d try the RvR in DAOC. I played DAOC a few years back but on the carebear server.
Results are preliminary, but, I believe I’m too old and fumble-fingered to be much of an RvR success. By the time I realize we’re under attack and I target, I’m dead.
I’m also looking forward to the last strawberry pound cake of the week. I’ve gone through 2 pints of strawberries in about 10 days. Think I may have to raise the Belt Notch Limit Ceiling.
I was never able to get into WoW, for some reason.
Mike Kay (Team America)
In honor of Cole’s photo: Get to da choppa!
Comrade Kevin
@Mike Kay (Team America): There’s an achievement in WoW with that name.
LM
PaulW at #12 You’re selling ebooks? A couple of days ago I got back scans of 8 books in my backlist. I have to edit them but ugh. So I started making the covers. Boy is picasa a very very limited & limiting way to do this. It is, however, free. So are the guides I downloaded about formatting. Anyway, sounds like you’ve come out on the other side of all that, so kudos.
Other than that, I’m rewatching The Wire. Poor Frank Sobotka.
Villago Delenda Est
There is a HILARIOUS quest line in the Badlands where some NPCs, in a Rashomon type fashion, describe what happened when Deathwing emerged from Deepholm and first ravaged the Bandlands. A chopper plays a prominent part in in the last quest in the line.
Comrade Kevin
@Villago Delenda Est: That sequence of quests is, indeed, awesome. There’s also a hilarious one in Hillsbrad where you need to help an NPC “player” by the name of “Dumass”. I think there’s an Alliance version of it, too.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
A should be bigger story from Steve Benen (is this what they call a buried lede?)
* Still high, but better: “The Labor Department says that weekly applications [for unemployment benefits] dropped 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 405,000, the lowest level in almost three months.” We would have been well below the 400,000 threshold were it not for the government shutdown in Minnesota.
It’s almost as if there’s some correlation between government spending and jobs. Somebody should tell somebody
joel hanes
Reading Dances With Dragons, ending a five-year wait for it to come out.
It starts well.
Urza
audio books of Song of Ice and Fire are better, but your mileage may vary when it comes in 6 nearly 8 hour long chunks
someday I hope they redo them in an epic audio book using the tv actor voices, but I guess thats asking alot
Jennifer
What am I up to?
I took my nephew who’s visiting me out to dinner at Chili’s (which is where he wanted to go). When we went in, I showed the hostess my e-cigarette, asked her if she was familiar with them and if it was ok to use it. She said it was fine, so, I was taking an occasional puff off it while waiting for the food to arrive. So, on the other side of the divider where our table is, one table down, there’s this huge fatass mountain of a woman, who’s very rudely staring at me. And clearly talking about me, as she says something to her fatass husband and he turns around and stares too. The waiter comes by to drop off our drinks and says, “oh, you’ve got one of those e-cigarettes.”
Next thing I know, here’s the manager at the table asking me to put it away, saying they’ve had a “complaint”. I say, “oh, that woman right there (pointing) who’s been rudely staring at me for the past 10 minutes? What’s her problem?” He says she’s complained about “the smell.”
Now, I don’t know if you’re familiar with e-cigs, but…there IS no smell, unless you’re 2 feet away or in a very small enclosed space like a car, and even then it’s very faint, and in my case, since the liquid in mine is spearmint, it smells like a stick of gum – when you can smell it, which a fatass bitch sitting 10 feet away in a large room certainly can not. Horribly offensive, right? I ask him, “what does she say it smells like?” He can’t answer. I said, “I’ll be glad to put it away, but just so you know…I DID ask the hostess when we were seated if it was OK and she said it was, this things does not HAVE a smell, and all it’s putting out is water vapor.” But I put it away. He leaves, I look over, and fatass bitch is STILL staring at me. So…very loudly, and without really even thinking about it, I say, “I’m OFFENDED because you’re FAT!” My nephew almost falls out of his seat laughing.
The waiter comes back by and apologizes, says she complained to him first, and he TOLD HER it was nothing but water vapor, and she STILL called the manager over and complained. Then he says, “that table has been a problem since they got here, sorry again.” So when he leaves, I start staring a hole through the fatass bitch; meanwhile I continue to push the button on the e-cig (but not puff on it) so she can see it lighting up. Within about a minute she says to her husband “she’s sitting over there STARING at me,” and I say aloud, and hope she’s reading lips, “goddamn right I’m staring at you, just like you’ve been doing to me since I got here.” She says to her husband, “I’m going to go on out.” And she gets up and leaves and (according to my nephew) stares daggers at the back of my head as she’s leaving.
A few minutes later fat hubby gets up to leave. I see him through the window, waddling out to the car. He gets in and apparently gets some tongue-lashing from her, because he gets back out, comes back inside, goes up to the hostess stand and starts a conversation in which he’s pointing over to our table (again, according to my nephew). I say to my nephew, “what, are they pitching a fit now because I was doing the same thing to her she’d been doing to me the whole time I’ve been here? What, they’re going to ask the manager to kick us out of the restaurant for looking at her now?”
Anyway, we ended up with a comp meal; I was nothing but sweetness and light to the manager and waiter. But I’m still kicking myself wishing I had gotten up, gone up to her table, and said, “look, if you’re so concerned about your health that you’re worried about inhaling a little WATER VAPOR, by all means stay away from hot beverages & etc, but most of all, if that’s your worry, stop digging your grave with your FORK you fatass busybody.” But then, we probably wouldn’t have gotten a free meal. As for the fatass twins, I think they paid full freight for their meal.
You know, I’m a reasonable person. But when someone is such a fucking bitch that they’re going make shit up just to try to fuck up someone else’s day for their pleasure…I’m glad I made her uncomfortable enough to hove her fatass out the door.
My nephew is still laughing about all of this, BTW. I’m a really bad influence.
ProudCynic
Wait–is that one of the hunter spells I see in that screenshot, or has it been re-purposed? Mr. Cole, do you name your pets Tunch, Lily and Rosie? Honestly, I always had you pegged as a shaman, what with you being a godless librul and all.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
Reading blogs, what the hell else do you think I’m doing this evening? And every evening. I gotta get back to life* one of these days.
*The part that doesn’t involve working or repairing stuff in the house, of course.
RobertB
Doing the same thing. Dying repeatedly to the Spider boss.
Thymezone
Hi, what I am doing is advancing this argument to push back against the destructive Move On campaign related to the debt ceiling talks.
Don’t sign this petition. This campaign by Move On, an organization that is supposedly on our side, is based on a pretty blatant piece of misinformation … or if you prefer, a lie … about the handling of the Social Security issue in the current debt ceiling negotiations. Don’t believe the rhetoric, it’s not true .. and it harms our true cause.
Excerpt /–
Guess what the president just did
pol.moveon.org
News reports say Obama put Social Security cuts on the table for a debt deal with Republicans. We have to act quickly to get congressional Democrats to take those cuts off the table–a deal can’t pass without them.
–/ end excerpt
Let me explain: Social Security was never going to be “slashed.” That’s not just hype, that’s a lie. What was floated during the debt ceiling talks was a proposal to change the formula used for COLA (cost of living) increases to benefits in Social Security going forward.
Depending on whose spin you choose to read, this was either a minor shift in benefit calculations, or a big one … and both opinions are technically true. It’s minor in the short years, and could .. could … become major in the out years (20, 30 years down the road) due to compounding. There are two key things you should understand about this proposal:
One, the out years are not terribly well predictable, in terms of benefits parameters, from where we are now, and what we say about them now is not binding on governments in those out years.
Two, and more importantly, this new calculation was described by its proponents as a move to “strengthen Social Security” … AND IT IS.
You see, the “strength” of Social Security is NOT the ability of the system to deliver bigger and bigger benefits as a matter of policy. The strength being referred to here is the integrity of the system itself. Unless benefits calcs are kept true to a consistent and very rational connection between the drivers … such as cost of living … and the benefits, the fiscal health of the system can get out of whack. Keeping it on track is what makes it strong, reliable, and congruent with fiscal responsibility as conditions change … which they constantly do.
If we jury rigged Social Security to always gin up the greatest possible benefit increase from a driver, such as cost of living, at the expense of a really rational and cautious link between driver and benefits, over time the whole system would get out of balance and become vulnerable to attack and fiscally insolvent, or closer to it. It’s long term health MUST be based on sound, solid, consistent math and consistent rules that don’t damage the integrity of the math over time.
What happens when a complex system like this gets out of balance with its internals? You end up with a trainwreck of fixes and patches that will remind you of the income tax code … because instead of keeping it sound, people have just slapped on fixes and gouges and jury rigs year after year after year until the whole thing is a pile of junk. That is exactly what we DO NOT want to happen to Social Security. The proposed “cuts” are adjustments that avoid that damage.
Now to the bigger point: If we start lying to ourselves, and to our base, and to the public at large, about every necessary adjustment to this program and calling anything that reduces a benefit a “slash” as if it were going to tear down the program, when in fact it will strengthen the program, then we are doing the same kind of misinformation disservice that our opponents do every day. When ends start to justify means, and we spin and hype and make things up for political purposes, we lose the integrity of our message, and we lose the high ground.
Investigate and think carefully before being sucked into this “Don’t Slash Social Security” campaign …. it smells.
Thanks for reading a long and slightly technical piece. Let’s not turn into “pledge signers” like the Norquist Drones. We can do better.
Suffern ACE
What am I up to? I’m on vacation for two weeks starting tomorrow. One week stay at home, 2nd week with the folks in Wisconsin where we’ll be making raspberry jam and canning peaches. Last year, my vacation was spent reading post after post about the near ground zero mosque thinking everyone had lost their minds so I didn’t have much fun. This year, I think I will buy a five-gallon bucket, fill it with sand, and bury my head in it. Nothing I can do about the debt ceiling, and I want to enjoy my last trip home that will free from the inspections of local customs officials and forced bribes to petty militia commanders.
Mark B
Playing Legend of the Green Dragon … which is a web-based recreation of Legend of the Red Dragon, which I used to host on a BBS in the dark ages before the Internet was created.
[retry … original post disappeared]
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Jennifer: Well, kudos to you, I think. I have become unfailingly polite to everyone as I get older. Particularly while driving, after I realized that many of the people I encounter could be armed.
Cacti
The last Harry Potter movie premieres tonight.
Thank god.
Jennifer
Brother Shotgun – I believe I was every bit as polite to this person as she was to me.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Jennifer: True enough, from your description. And as to my fear of encountering armed angry people, seems to me you’d’ve had plenty of time to deal with it while she shifted mass to locate her weapon, so no worries there.
Sirkowski
Am I the only one seeing a really weird front page??
Yutsano
I am home from work and drinking a passion iced tea lemonade from Starbucks. My time sheet tomorrow is going to look downright schizophrenic.
Comrade Kevin
@Thymezone: I thought you had left, because we weren’t worth your pearls of wisdom.
CaseyL
I am home, feeling incredibly lazy for no particular reason, and wondering if I can and/or want to get up at 5:00 am to go to Boot Camp exercise class. I hope I decide to do so, because in just one week the class has made a perceptible difference. But… sometimes Morning Me has a very different idea about these things than Evening Me. And Morning Me might decide she really wants to sleep in that extra couple hours.
Yutsano
If anyone needs an uplifting positive tale, I offer this vignette of saving the life of a whale.
joel hanes
I reported :
Urza @24 opined :
audio books of Song of Ice and Fire are better
Hmm.
I prefer my own in-my-head interpretive reading to any audiobook I’ve ever heard, and to most of the deliveries by actors in even great movie versions.
Last week I drove from Texas to Iowa with my mom and sister, listening to the audiobook of Connelly’s Lincoln Lawyer. The reader worked hard to separate the characters, hamming up the voice interpretations, but was unable to scan far enough ahead to lay the spoken emphases correctly, or even plausibly, in sentences (like this one) with more than two or three clauses.
Jennifer
@ 40 Yutsano – damn, I thought that WAS an uplifting tale I told.
Spaghetti Lee
Because I hate myself, apparently, I’m havin’ an online slapfight with a libertarian acquaintance who is trying to tell me that the PPACA, the Dodd-Frank Bill, and the GM Bankruptcy were all instances of nationalization.
Yutsano
@Jennifer: FWIW I LOLed. But right now any uplift is a fucking welcome occurrence.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
i’ll post here and in thread above about some wingnut asshole: going to be in Seattle Tuesday night and then in Portland Wednesay for the Portland/West Brom match. I would greatly welcome suggestions on places to eat drink and party in either city.
Thanks!
burnspbesq
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine:
Red Star Tavern in downtown Portland is a fabulous restaurant. Not much of a party place, but fabulous food and really good service.
Thymezone
@Comrade Kevin: No, I didn’t leave. I just curtailed most but not all of my posting. Been busy here at Zone headquarters. We’re expanding into China.
Thymezone
@Yutsano: The sea was angry that day, my friends?
burnspbesq
@Yutsano:
Is your friend that wanted to pick my brain free for lunch on Monday? That’s pretty much the only slot I have open.
Also, need a recco for a good burgers-and-salads type joint in the vicinity of Pike Place Market. Get in with spouse and kid at 1:00 on Saturday but check-in at the Hyatt Place isn’t until 3:00.
Email me a burnspbesq at gmail dot com.
ABL
The sea was angry that day my friends! Like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli.
mike the dealer
I prefer this version of the story. My Little Pony makes everything better.
Yutsano
@burnspbesq: E-mail sent. And a good thought for a food rec is the Pike Brewing Company, although I fully anticipate being overruled by MikeJ here. :)
BeccaM
What am I doing? Loathing the stupid Druid line of quests in the Firelands, because the stupid NPC git didn’t spawn for nearly a week… and when he does finally, I end up burned to a crisp even though I’m nowhere near the flames as he walks through ’em.
Can’t wait until tomorrow when I finally open up the Wardens daily hub.
Landrynn, Blackwater Raiders, Alliance, Beast Master Hunter…
overeducated
Got into the Old Republic Beta, so i’ve been busy with that!